Could I earn a place in Heaven –by what meansand what might it do to me?What if I found that once there, thennot only had I ceased to bebut too that Heaven isn’t as it seems?

That is to say, what good is to be hadcut off from everything –what good to learn when nothingresembles a chance to ever meet the bad?

For all the flaws of our life on EarthI must say –I’d choose this life, right here and nowover a place in Heaven any day.For all the dreary, and for what it’s worth,no other place provides a chance for growth.

There… there…
no, I failed to grasp it again
but I was close this time…
That word just keeps eluding me…
I have it… I have had it… I had it…
It’s gone…
I speak the things out loud
inside my head
I would have liked to have said
out loud
but even then that word
eludes me…
What was it now again?

I lack that word to describe myself
and what I am…
I have a handful of clichés
and even they don’t even
approximate
what I am…
What am I?
Something indescribable
apparently…

I am a finger hovering over a keyboard for a
missing key…

I am a note lingering in the air after the music has ended…
I am the anticipation before the music has started to play…

I am a synthesis – but of what? Of past and
future making present? Of art and technology making a future I’m not sure I even wish to live in? But would I rather live in the past?

Where in the world do I belong? In the physical world where I am technically situated I might as well not exist, but I cannot really exist in the
virtual world I inhabit. My words come out as nothing but the clatter of a keyboard. As if I was only speaking to myself. I look up and around and think that I might as well be.

But I chose this for myself didn’t I? How can I complain that I am lonely and that nobody understands me when I chose this? I had alternatives. They were worse. I chose this. I chose the
keyboard. I chose the clatter. I chose the silence. Because the price of speaking is so damn high.
I chose the computer over the people. Because the computer is logical and follows instructions. It understands the code I write. Humans cannot be relied upon to understand the words I say. They do not always. They do not – mostly. But the
computer I can talk to. And it doesn’t suddenly decide that it would rather have its software
written by someone more attractive or less needy or less socially awkward or less quiet. It just
accepts me. It’s just there when I need it. And I never have to struggle to express myself to it like I have to when around people.
That was my choice. But it was never an easy one.

But maybe it doesn’t all have to be as black and white as I have made it out to be. Maybe I can combine everything. Maybe I can speak to people through the computer. For lack of better options. And maybe they would actually hear me.

If I lack words I must make them. I must re-program the language to fit me if it doesn’t. And it doesn’t. I must reshape my language in my own image and hope that somebody will understand what I mean anyway.

You know them, those pesky two-legged creatures who constantly bother you when you try to work and just won’t respect your privacy. When you plan a trip to finally be alone with yourself in nature, they might even suddenly decide to tag along.
It is as if they think themselves the most important thing in the world, and in your life. It is as if any proof to the contrary is invisible to them.

I have so many questions;
at least one for every person I have met,
both the ones alive
and the ones who are dead.

I have so much to ask everyone
because I want to understand
my life and its connections;
something I just can’t!

I have questions for my parents;
grandparents (now all dead);
and family members I have – or haven’t – met.
For teachers, classmates,
partners, friends;
for cleaners, lunch-ladies, janitors,
secretaries, bus-drivers, waitresses,
hairdressers, yes,
even the creepy guy who stocks shelves
at my local supermarket.

I have so many questions
that I’d like to ask them all
but all I ever say is: “What a weather!”,
“Got my e-mail?” or “On which shelf…?”

And besides, the most important questions
are the ones I ought to ask myself…